A neatly presented description of 3 experiments using ‘air calorimetry’ to look for unusual exothermy in a heated ceramic tube using various mixtures of Ni/H/Li/Al. No unexpected results were obtained. While the paper describes some similarities to the published work of A. Parkhomov –most notably in the use of an electrically heated Alumina reaction vessel – this review shows sufficient variations from Parhomov’s methodology to suggest that it should not be considered a true replication.

Background.

Early in 2015, Alexander Parkhomov attracted considerable attention with a paper — initially published in Russian — in which he described an anomalous heat effect produced when replicating earlier work by Andrea Rossi et al. Rossi’s work showed heating caused apparently by Low Energy Nuclear Reactions inside a sealed vessel containing (at least) Nickel and Hydrogen. This work was in turn based on the efforts and discoveries of many researchers over decades, including most notably those of the late Professor Sergio Focardi at Bologna University in Italy. In 1994, Professor Focardi, Roberto Habel and Francesco Piantelli published a widely read and cited peer-reviewed paper on exothermy in Ni/H systems in the Italian particle physics journal, Nuovo Cimento A. (Focardi S., Habel R., and Piantelli F., “Anomalous Heat Production in Ni-H Systems,” Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 107A, p. 163-167, (1994)

Replicating Replications.

Parkhomov’s successful (in terms of exothermy and apparent partial transformation/transmutation of fuel elements) Rossi replication led to similar attempts by other experimenters, which — as in the case of the work reviewed here — seem generally to have met with limited or no success. One of the root causes of this difficulty is that commercial imperatives created by the discovery of an important new energy source have led to information critical to replication being kept out of the public domain. This secrecy in itself makes Parkhomov’s success both interesting and curious – one of the factors supporting increased interest in LENR research.

Experimenters now face a situation where in the absence of a generally accepted experimental procedure, theory, or definitive recipe for fuel ingredients, they are adding their own embellishments to the pursuit of ‘anomalous heat’ in what are potentially complex systems. The end result of ‘partly copying the copies’ is reminiscent of the old tale, ‘Chinese Whispers’. Here a verbal instruction transferred from soldier to soldier and back to HQ became hopelessly transformed. ‘Send reinforcements, the enemy are advancing’ became ‘send three and fourpence, the army’s going dancing.’

While experimenting in a new field with different materials and methods is commendable, doubly so when the work is being financed and performed by the experimenter himself, it is wrong to describe these as ‘replications’, since they are more truly ‘variations on a theme.’

Similarities and Differences.

Significant differences between this experiment and Parkhomov’s paper and methods are:-

1. In none of the three test runs reported did the fuel contain any Lithium Aluminium Hydride (LiAlH4). Hydrogen donation to the fuel mix was in every case done by a combination of vacuum degassing at 350C (in one case more) followed by adding gaseous Hydrogen at ambient temperature..

2. In two cases the fuel contained either Aluminium Oxide or Aluminium metal powder.

3. While we are given accounts of the incremental nature of the heating procedure (e.g. 100C steps) there is no indication of the dwell time at each step, or an overall time-line for the tests. In fact experiment duration is mentioned only in a passing reference to ‘20 hours’ toward the end of the paper.

4. The experiments use what might be described as ‘total-immersion air calorimetry’ to check for any exothermy. This differs from both the Parkhomov water bath system, and from Rossi’s thermal camera method. This author does not claim to be an expert on Calorimetry, a topic so large that it is a field of its own the calibration curves look ok – air is a far from ideal medium for tests requiring sensitive calorimetry. More importantly, the KISS principle suggests that it would have been much easier to check for differences in the electrical energy input required to maintain a given thermostat setting when comparing runs with a control mix of known ‘inert fuel’ (say plain Nickel powder and Argon) in the system with runs using an experimental ‘active fuel’.

5. Like the systems of Rossi and Parkhomov, this experiment used a Kanthal wire resistance heater coiled around the fuel chamber. A major divergence is the use of a DC power source to energise the coil. While DC offers greater ease and surety of correct measurement than AC current, both Parkhomov and Rossi used AC to drive their heating coils. The current was mediated in Parkhomov’s case by a Triac – a source of ‘noisy’ chopped AC. Rossi used a 3-phase current controller of his own devising produces what he has described as ‘frequencies’. Using AC in a coil wrapped around the fuel container creates rapidly changing magnetic fields inside it. DC also creates a magnetic field, but it is static and unchanging while the current is flowing. This is a key difference.

Summary and Conclusion.

While Jeff Morris has built, described and laid out his equipment with great skill and care, it is not correct –or fair- to describe his experiment as a Parkhomov replication. It is a worthy piece of work with original ideas and features, but key elements –like a time line – in the results have been overlooked, as well as the more obvious variations in fuel content, most notably the complete absence of LiAlH4.

Jeff is obviously keen on the theories of Vladimir Dubinko –extensively quoted in the last part of his paper- but the use of DC heating in these tests seems to indicate a lack of understanding of the role that ‘noisy’ AC currents and the magnetic fields they create might play in stimulating breathers.

In conclusion, this work is in many ways a sound addition to the pile of ‘don’t try this’ experiments that we LENR researchers have grown used to, but contains too many divergent features to be a true replication.

A reason why Rossi will not comment on stimulation of the core may be because Piantelli allready have patented such mechanisms, as I referred to Below.

So Rossi is using stimulation, but don’t want to talk about it, since he may “get Piantelli on his back”?

The only thing I find in the Rossi patent claims are “reinvigorating” reaction by “varying” a voltage source.

Which could mean varying AC voltage with some high frequency (at what Herz?), and thereby creating some extra stimulating magnetic fields….for “reinvigorating” the core…..

But he can not state it in his patent, since it is allready protected by Piantelli.

So Replicators should propably discuss stimulation with Piantelli then….

John Littlemist

Good job, I know that digesting patent text can be painful. But now that you have digested those Piantelli applications, could you compare them to this Soininen application: http://www.google.com/patents/US20150162104
How do the excitation methods differ? What about the fuel compositions, any differences?

Eyedoc

Yes, you may be right ! But what does Piantelli actually say about the stimulation??(in plain English please,,
thanks) Does it actually spell out anything concrete, or is it just all
vague ‘patentese’ ?

Dr. Mike

Alan,
I agree with your conclusion that Jeff’s experiment was not a good replication of the Parkhomov experiment for just the reasons that you stated. If Jeff’s experiment had followed Parkhomov’s with only one major exception, a null result would have provided useful information. However, with several major differences between the two experiments, a null result does little to advance the progress of LENR research. Hopefully, once someone gets a positive result on a replication attempt, they will continue their experiments to see what doesn’t work, especially with regard to fuel mixture and the power source used to heat the reactor. I would like to see an experiment run with a dc heated reactor having a secondary reactor winding to supply a variable high frequency excitation to the reactor.
Dr. Mike. I

“Gary W. Phillips, a nuclear physicist and expert in CR-39 detectors is similarly surprised by what he saw in SPAWAR’s detectors. Phillips has used the detectors to record nuclear events for two decades.
“The evidence recorded in SPAWAR Systems Center’s CR-39 detectors are “at least one order of magnitude greater” in number than those in any other conventional nuclear experiments he’s seen in his 20 years of related experience.”

“I’ve never seen such a high density of tracks before,” Phillips noted. “It would have to be from a very intense source – a nuclear source. You cannot get this from any kind of chemical reaction.”

On Phillips:

Dr. Phillips conducts research in nuclear radiation detection and neutron dosimetry and teaches a course on Radiation Detection, Environmental Health Physics and Nuclear Nonproliferation in the Health Physics masters degree program at Georgetown University. “His recent research interests include the development of neutron spectrometers using CR39 track etch detectors and of optical radiation detectors for nuclear non-proliferation applications.”

And CR 39 is much harder to dismiss than calorimetry and electronic measurements.

If there are LENR, then CR39 should show tracks, If placed in close proximity to the action.

Zephir

/* And CR 39 is much harder to dismiss than calorimetry and electronic measurements */

From practical perspective only calorimetric experiments are relevant, though…

Oystein Lande

The big question is:

What is the common factor of the varying stimulation efforts that have shown success?

There is one that I know of – and we will likely put out a call in the new year with the aim of getting him sorted with a laser system.

Mats002

What is the plan for Alan and the glowstick? That is a good platform to test:
a) baking and other pre treatment of fuel as in material science and
b) explore EM stimulations broadly and
c) look for high energy radiation as a finer test than excess heat

Bob Greenyer

The best thing to do is as Alan on the current GS5 series experiment thread

The first GS5 run was meant mainly to test several improvements in the Glowstick design. Some of these were successful (vacuum system, new power controller and measurement instrument) but the “removable” SS fuel capsule was found to be stuck in the cell tube.

I’ve redesigned the fuel capsule and I’m building the new components now. I have more mullite tubes and plan to run GS 5.2 in about two weeks. Fuel will be as described the Rossi patent, and longer test duration.

magicsnd1

I also have plans for adding external stimulus to the Glowstick design. Here’s a sketch of what I have in mind:

“………an impulsive application of a package of electromagnetic fields, in particular said fields selected from the group comprised of: a radiofrequency pulse whose frequency is larger than 1 kHz; X rays; v rays; an electrostriction impulse that is generated by an impulsive electric current that flows through an electrostrictive portion of said active core….”

“- an electric voltage impulse that is applied between two points of a piezoelectric portion of said active core; an impulsive magnetostriction that is generated by a magnetic field pulse along said active core which has a magnetostrictive portion.”

Could you specify, how does one arrive at prediction that something happens especially at temperature 60 C? Is this number a table value or a result of some calculation?

Alan DeAngelis

It’s just that I remember (but don’t trust my memory) that Rossi may have said that the reaction initiated when the E-Cat is heated to 60 degrees C. And I’m assuming that the heating would generate infrared photons.

so maybe Aluminum IS an important reaction component also (the LiAlH4 again 😉

Mats002

Yes – the mouse is producing coherent IR thanks to Al in the mix. That laser IR is the stimuli to Cat which is the same mix again but now in an inner vessel that give the higher COP and from time to time SSM.
But again: try, try, try, try…

Omega Z

“the mouse is producing coherent IR thanks to Al in the mix.”

I think you may be wrong. Al was present in the Lugano fuel, but the mouse was not activated or producing coherent IR during any of the Lugano test. In fact, I believe Rossi only activates the Mouse when heat energy is no longer applied (the OFF state) to the reactor.

Also from what Rossi answered on JONP, he may be able to reverse the stimulation effect in order to prevent a runaway if done in time.

Mats002

It depends what you define as ‘mouse’. I have in many threads argued for what is the mouse and Cat and why I arrived at those definitions.

Lugano was mouse only, so was also Parkhomov and MFMP glowstick.

Of course I might be wrong but please be more specific exactly where my conclusions fail.

Omega Z

The Lugano test was the Cat only. Rossi posted that the Mouse is only used when the off/on function is enabled. In continious ON state is only the Cat.

I will take a look and see if I can find that on JONP.

Mats002

Rossi said that without Cat being stimulated by mouse you can not distinguish Cat from mouse, they are the same. Which name do you want to give in this situation: mouse or Cat or None or single-mode or…? I choose mouse in this situation.

Alan DeAngelis

PPS
Although heat would give IR photons, a tuned laser would give us a more quantitative analysis. Point the laser at the LiAlH4 in the
presence of an alpha detector (making sure first that the laser alone doesn’t set off the detector).

Mats002

Alan, which frequency do you intend to use in that laser experiment? IR is a range not a specific freq.

Alan DeAngelis

Hi Eyedoc. The only experiments I’m equipped to do are thought experiments but the frequencies are 1693 and 1652 cm-1.

Once a reaction is initiated I think it would be interesting to hold fuel and temperature and use the current as the independent variable, testing first with “the ‘noisy’ AC currents and the magnetic fields they create” and then with DC.

Alan DeAngelis

Yeah gdaigle, we could learn a lot from a systematic study (and it wouldn’t require billions of dollars to do).

Zephir

Parkhomov didn’t use metallic lithium but a lithium aluminum hydride. This is such a big deviation from Parkhomov protocol, it even cannot be called a replication, “close adherence” the less. The molten lithium will soak the nickel surface, thus rendering it inacessible for hydrogen. The aluminium oxide here is important, as it binds the lithium oxides formed with decomposition of reaction mixture – otherwise the caustic mixture will attack the nickel under formation of lithium nickelates. Also, Parkhomov did use a nickel pretreated (dried) at 200 °C. It’s evident, molten lithium eroded the pipe so it cracked before the pressure could be reached. Frankly, I don’t understand, why replicators continue to use ceramic pipes, when the simple & cheap nickel pipe (welded by autogen flame) would be enough (and it provides better transport of heat). It can be also heated inductively, which would help the nuclear reaction based on resonance of surface plasmons.

Alan DeAngelis

Yeah Zephir, and as someone said (if I remember correctly), the fact that we haven’t heard from Parkhomov lately may be our confirmation.

Oystein Lande

I’ve tried several times and in several ways to get Rossi to comment on stimulation of the core, but he has allways said “confidential “or “no comment”, or today “sorry spammed”

What we know of the Brillouin and NANOR it’s to me obvious that this is what all Rossi ‘replications’ are missing:

Electromagnetic stimulation! The problem now is to find the right kind of stimulus (frequency etc)

Mats002

Yes – and add to that that Dr Piantelli also did not reveal all ingredients in the recipe, he said so openly! Obviously EM is part of the recipe even for Piantelli – his first goal was not LENR but cancer mitigation and he used EM to stop cell dividing. EM is part of the mix, no doubt, but the parameter space is still large.

Eyedoc

Seriously ?? AR spammed you for asking of EM? you know you are close!….. Would you please tell me EXACTLY what you asked him?

Omega Z

Rossi has been asked about EM, RF and etc many times only to receive the standard response of it is confidential information.

Rossi spammed Lande’s post because it was in discussion of a competitor.
You may ask Rossi about a competitor replication and slide by, but go into details & Rossi will not comment or even spam you.

Rossi is even known for spamming comments that become to repetitious & even stating he will spam all future questions on the matter.
However, You can congratulate him 10 million times on his patent without concern of being spammed. 🙂
I can’t hold that against him…

Zephir

Defkalion did simply use the sparking plug in his reactor – apparently every frequency above radiowaves could work. Rossi once noted, that the DC doesn’t work as a source of heat – it also means, that the grid voltage chopped with thyristor contains enough of high frequencies to trigger the fusion.

Roland

Has it struck you that heat may only be necessary to initiate LENR if you haven’t figured out the exact resonant frequencies required to both initiate and moderate the reaction for a particular set of critical initial conditions…

And further to this; perhaps this is why your enquiries in this direction are so firmly rebuffed.

What if the mysterious E-cat X has rapid, as hinted at by Rossi, onset, and is downward scalable to the degree Rossi states, because the mechanism of the reactor has been significantly simplified; perhaps it achieves double the power densities of the previous iteration because there is no initial clumsy direct thermal induction required to start the reaction.

What if LENR is similar to a Bose-Einstien condensate in that the properties of the condensate are ’emergent’ from this ‘new’ state of matter given the correct initial conditions for a particular element or molecule…

Bob Greenyer

Alan, agreed. He is in contact with us – so we should be able to sort him out with correct fuel elements. He has been very open and so qualifies for some Parkhomov fuel components, the Nickel of which I will try to send him first thing in the new year. He also lives very close to Alan Goldwater – so I am hoping that he will enable longer runs.

Axil Axil

What is concerning to me about the band of replicators that you lead is the obsession with excess heat.

More sensitive reaction detection methods might be called for.

A more sensitive way to tell if the LENR reaction gains traction in a experiment might be to look for particle tracks on photo enlargement paper.

After an experiment is complete, the ash from the experiment could be tested for particle activity by placing the ash on a piece of paper covering the photo enlargement paper and let set in a dark place for a day or two.

After the photo process proceeds for a day or two, then develop the photo enlargement paper and check for particle tracks that are coming out of the ash with a magnifier.

The ash could also be placed on a piece of clear hard plastic in the same way and the plastic subjected to etching. Particle tracks and pits will show up in the plastic with a etching chemical(sodium hydroxide).

Another way to get a more sensitive look at the LENR reaction other than using excess heat is to use a particle track detector: a cloud chamber. Once again, place the ash from the completed LENR experiment and look for particle tracts. Your mentor, Paintelli has done this and has seen 6 MeV protons,

John Fisher found that he could increase the detection of particles in a CR-39 plastic particle detection strip by a factor of 7 when he used a fan to blow the particles toward the detector placed 2 meters away from his experiment.

This technique could be used to check for particles that are coming from your experiment. The cloud chamber could be placed meters from your experiment and placed in the path of a fan blowing air heated by your experiment. The same particles that were seen by John Fisher could show up in your cloud chamber or that of your replicators.

Bob Greenyer

Hi Axil,

I agree – I wrote an article on basically the same subject which I published on our main site and FB on the 20th July 2015.

In it you can see breakout discussions – including from Alan Goldwater mentioning X-Ray emulsion. Bob Higgins mentioned using Magnets to detect type of particles. We looked at the options for TEG based cloud chambers etc.

In the end the MFMP is coordinated and collaborate strongly – but no one is controlled – members need to be free to think for themselves and engage their intellect and own resources – they are giving their time after all.

Celani has again re-committed to send the latest wires to Mathieu Valat for his experiment that is now calibrated and ready to look for emissions.

Bob Higgins is advancing with the {GarbageCan} which is designed to look for emissions from Parkhomov and is looking also to build a real-time 1-4 amu detector.

The fan idea is novel to me, thanks for that. Please add it to the post discussing these things that I have linked above.

Axil Axil

Sometimes it is good to coordinated and collaborate strongly through example. How neat would it be for Alan Goldwater to put his experimental ash into a cloud chamber and see it burst into a thousand muon tracks all broadcast live worldwide over the net. Such an occurrence would make for a great show.

I believe that everybody would want to get their piece of this LENR glory by putting their ash on display in the same way worldwide.

Bob Greenyer

I agree – you and I have put this out there. It was clear after “Bang!” that even after 27 mins there was likely not much more than background (assuming Piantelli) detectable by the Geiger counter we used – so that is where the idea I put forward came from stop cool and crack as fast as possible – even 1 single track would be amazing since nothing we are putting in is radioactive.

Might need to acquire the parts and ship to prolific replicators to maximise the possibility of it happening. I’d like to do it with me356 when possible in the new year.

Axil Axil

Throughout history, philosophers, teachers and religious leaders have used stories and parables to help us understand intangible, often complex, concepts. One of my favorites is the Indian parable of the elephant and the blind men.

It runs roughly like this: six blind men were asked by the king to describe an elephant after being allowed to touch just one part of the animal.

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says it is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says it is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a rug; the one who feels the elephant’s side insists is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says it is like a spear.

This lack of perspective in LENR data gathering is at the root of the problems at understanding LENR. There have been at least a dozen ways to look at LENR experimental results and more are being invented every day. Each experimenter has his own way at looking at the LENR elephant but no one has seen LENR in its totality.

Ed Storms who is arguably the best scientist among us looks only at the subset of experiments in LENR that support his experimental perspective on LENR. He ignores the other experimental results because these results are produced by processes that he is uncomfortable at performing.

Piantelli looks at what he sees in the cloud chamber and molds his theories around those experimental perspectives.

Holmlid tells us to look for muons and mesons so he can drag us toward his ideas about Rydberg matter.

The Lugano testers looked at transmutation in a way few if any of the other experiments can match to derive how they view LENR. Even Rossi looks at those results as inspiration for the development of the E-Cat X.

John Fisher uses CR-39 particle detectors to come up with his polyneutron theory.

The list of these LENR blind men increases by the dozens and yet there is a question that they all have: why is LENR caused by so many things. No one has stepped back and looked at the entire LENR animal to get the true perspective at what LENR is.

The more ways that we can use to look at the LENR elephant, the better view that we will get at understanding what LENR is. The detection of excess heat is not enough, far from it. The stature and the value that an experimentalist brings to the LENR effort is proportional to the number of ways he can look at what LENR is doing. Just as is true in software development, the program that is under test will only be as good as the power of the debug tools brought to bear against the complexity of its operation.

Bob Greenyer

I for one have, for some long while, maintained the position that only emissions or statistically significant transmutations would be my benchmark.

The projects first double blind sample testing yielded no isotopic shifts. Perhaps a future set will.

Zephir

IIf you want to demonstrate the excess of heat or even heat your room with cold fusion, you really don’t need the E-Cat running at 1200 °C. MO the electrolysis of nickel in potassium carbonate solution is very cheap and easy to replicate way of cold fusion. It has only one tricky part – you should avoid traces of sodium (which is common impurity in potassium carbonate), as the sodium is known to kill the cold fusion from Petterson times. IMO you even don’t need the nickel electrode, as the porous nickel surface could be prepared with co-deposition of nickel and hydrogen at another inert material (a common steel sheet). The co-deposition shortens the time for starting of cold fusion, as the newly formed surface is always of high surface area and saturated with hydrogen. Another improvement would be the introduction of lithium salts (as Peterson did) and the usage of high-frequency component to current, with using of cheap switching source like this one http://www.banggood.com/5V-12V-ZVS-Induction-Heating-Power-Supply-Module-With-Coil-p-1015637.html – which is the essential route of Brillouion company boilers.

If you refer to the “Patterson Power cell” (not Peterson or Petterson) To my knowledge, nobody seems to have replicated industrially the claimed 1,000 watts output for 1 watt input. Do you have more information or experiments results about it?

Zephir

/* nobody seems to have replicated industrially */ Because nobody did even attempted for it. But Patterson did also use palladium in his cells and the palladium is capable of self-sustaining reaction for weeks, as Mizuno once noted

The high COP reported by Patterson is therefore nothing strange in this regard.. But why not to replicate the Reiko Notoya experiments first? She did achieve COP > 10 reliably without any expensive palladium and she is a professor of physical chemistry, i.e. no lame…

The typical attitude of contemporary researchers (not just cold fusion proponents) is, they’re overly creative: they just cannot replicate things and to collect robust empirical basis for further research. The first cold fusion experiments of Panneth and Peters from 1926 were never attempted to replicate, the first transmutation experiments from 1922 were never attempted to replicate and so on. Notoya/Niedra experiments with electrolysis were never attempted to replicate, despite their simplicity, even the first experiments of Piantelli and Foccardi from 1992 with hot nickel inside the hydrogen weren’t attempted to replicate (with honest exception of Cellani, who still did use a different arrangement).

http://www.lenrnews.eu/lenr-summary-for-policy-makers/ AlainCo

right, this is a very common critik made by Jed Rothwell and Edmund Storms…
Scientist are more creative than obedient.
One exception is Longchampt who is… an engineer.

Pekka Janhunen

A good rule is that there should be time for everything and one should learn to switch modes. When replicating, one should replicate only. When planning, one should be creative. When shooting down one’s own ideas, one should be critical, etc. It’s not possible to do successful science if one is, for example, only creative or only critical.